2014 Grand Illusion Mystery Reveal

There was much speculation on the Quiltville Open Studio Facebook page a few days before New Year how many more clues and when the great reveal of the assembly instructions and the quilt design would happen...a few guessed New Year's day and this time they were right!

Bonnie pleased many with the reveal a day early and posted here the final instructions.

Although many were surprised it was interesting to see the comments from the different quilters as they began to assemble their blocks, sashing and borders.  It was unlike the previous year's mysteries with their bold ordered design as the quilt was a study in movement and really needed good contrast and fabrics that offered a definite color story.  I was glad I decided to for-go scrappy this time and use planned yardage because I am not sure if I would have been happy with many fabrics for this project.
So here it is

First in progress when I discovered I havn't made enough of the border pieces

And here is is finished as a bed runner...but just the top for now.

I do like the border a lot but wished I had not used the pink as it was a much stronger intensity than the lavender that were supposed to be star points...if they were reversed in placement it might have worked much better.  I also had to resolve the corners because my layout eliminated the sashing between blocks and made the outside borders 4 inches too small.  I ended up making two extra diamonds that reversed the diagonals.  Picture soon!

Thanks to Bonnie for giving us this great end of the year gift and can't wait til mystery 2015!

Grand Illusion Clue 4 and 5

Got so busy this past week that I never posted my pic of the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt created with Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.  That's OK, I am just posting the completion of both clues 4 and 5 in this post.
I took a picture of all the clues together for clue 4 which was more broken dishes blocks like clue 1 with some different fabrics.

 Again the colors are still showing much darker that they are in real life.  The pink is a lighter warm pink, the yellow is much softer.  The white and dark green is OK

Clue 5 is a bit better in coloration but still somewhat too dark.
Simple 4 patches.  I wonder at the one on the left as Bonnie calls for 4 of them if they might be used to resolve corners or make a center block?  If I need to make more at least they are easy enough to do.

Next week is the last clue!  Can't wait to see what we are going to be making  LOL

Stocking Dilemma

Oh, my!
Yep it's true...since the last time we hung stockings here we have had three new granddaughters join the family and they need some Nana made stockings!  So, what am I to do but...
I have always been a good Girl Scout at heart and live the motto
"be prepared" 
 and that is my excuse for the lovely fabric I have stashed away over the years.  Sitting high on my shelves was a set of fat quarters...quilter's talk for pieces measuring 18x20 inches...that have been pulled down over the years but never seemed to be right for the project at hand.

Oh, so pretty and very girly in nature.  I think I bought them maybe 4-5 years ago at a wonderful sale.
Good thing I also had some time to sew and that's what I did!

What a mess when I was done!  

The other thing that was stashed were laces and trims from as far back as when my daughter was younger and many that I had bought through the years since then.  I was able to gussy them up so that they finished up like this

Such pretty stockings for two of my granddaughters.  The other one lives in Arizona for now and since she won't be here this Christmas it gives me a bit more time.  

Wish we had a mantel here but displaying 11 stockings might have even overwhelmed the longest mantel!  

Oh yeah and I was able to do some Leader/Ender blocks for a challenge too!

Grand Illusion Clue 3

Ahhh
An easy clue this time!
Squares that come from strips cut from my dark pink, white and green fabrics subbing for Bonnies green, white and black.
I still need to make a few of the HST from clue 1 but doing this one quarter size has been great for me so that I could do some work in the sewing room clearing out the "black hole" corner.  More on that later but let's just say one of the results is that I un-earthed FOUR forgotten quilt tops!  LOL

Clues 1, 2, 3 with my "inspiration fabric".  The color is really off as the dark pink is not so orange and the yellow not so bright.

Grand Illusion Mystery with Bonnie Hunter UPDATE

Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt

So here it is a year later and time for another mystery quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.

For this year's mystery the first clue began the day after Thanksgiving and Howard and I were still visiting our family in Arizona so my quilt making was put off until I returned to Utah.
  My plans were to start on Wednesday but it was not until Thursday that I began clue #1 which luckily was a fairly easy step of half-square triangles and squares.  Easy enough using Inklingo for the half square triangles and rotary cutting the squares.  That one was done by Friday afternoon and I was ready for clue #2.

OH, my!  It's like last years "diamonds" step that we made into chevrons!  Sigh,  this one is a tricky step and since there is no Inklingo sized for this clue I decided to use the Easy Angle Ruler method.
I have never bought the Easy Angle however I did have a ruler that I purchased quite a few years ago from Kaye England that is the same concept which she uses to cut HST's like Bonnie does with the easy angle.
Hurrah it's wonderful to be able to use what I had on hand already.
So, to be honest mine didn't turn out perfect...and for some reason all the "diamond" shapes I cut from the printed template Bonnie provided turned out about 1/8 inch too small...sigh...

UPDATE: I figured out what the problem was!
I made measurements of the page comparing it to Bonnie's measurements and low and behold my printer was printing too big!  Took some trial and error but I need to reduce the printing to 95% of normal...When I did that and measured again the templates were accurate with the exception of the longwise measurements which were less than 1/16 of an inch too large. Glad to have that figured out but unfortunately I will have to live with what I have as the light pink fabric is almost gone and I am hoping that we won't need it for any more clues

I am not sure what happened but they are done and I will have to adjust as I sew them into the quilt once we have been given the reveal and assembly steps.

Photo one shows my fabrics and Clues 1 and 2 finished

Photo two shows the Kaye England ruler 

Scottish Celtic Solstice Clue 5

I was very excited to do clue 5 of Bonnie's (Scottish) Celtic Solstice Mystery because I have done these blocks before and although I knew a pretty easy method I wondered what Linda Franz of Inklingo had up her sleeve for this clue.
WOW!  So very easy compared to cutting all the little triangles and having to sew them on bias!  I am just even more impressed how adaptable Inklingo is to all kinds of quilt blocks.  I will admit that on my own I probably wouldn't have figured out this method so kudos to Linda and Monkey too.

One hundred blocks done!

Now, the bad news.  For some unfathonable reason my HP 1502 printer has gotten dementia or something and instead of printing on command just sits there and blinks at me.   Sigh...
I have done everything I know how to do...rebooted the computer (multiple times), unplugged and plugged in the printer itself (multiple times), uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers (multiple times), banged it on the top hoping to loosten something that might be causing it to bind up (one time) and nothing!
I have two other printers but one is a laser and one has to have the paper (with the fabric fused) stand upright and it doesn't allow the sheet to go through at all so....
I am guessing that I will have to find a new printer.  I need a simple one but from the messages on my Inklingo group, it seems that the new HP's don't allow for custom or user defined sizes which I need for Inklingo use and they have been the more cheeper printers.
so....
I will have to think about this for a day or more but need to decide for the future of my Inklingo use

Visit Here if you want to see some other amazing Celtic Solstice Mystery projects in progress.

Pineapple Blossom at Last!

Well...it's about time!
Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom blocks were the one I chose for my President of New Friends departing gift...I asked the ladies to make at least one block using my favorite color green.
I got an over abundance of wonderful blocks to play around with however they sat in limbo for ummmm 5+ years... sad to say!
anyway
I thought this would be the perfect time to get them out of the box and just put them together.  I had to do a bit of squareing up, which took some time but...it's working out just fine.
Thank goodness the quilt Queen Carmen reminded me that I would want to sash them anyway so I could square up (actually down) and even though the corner triangles were different sizes it was going to look great!
Hopefully I will have the whole quilt top together in a couple of days...Christmas should be a kind of quiet one and a perfect time for some sewing.